The Yoke Part 88

After some little employment among his effects, the cup-bearer came to the bedside on his way back to the king's tent, and bent over his guest.

"Holy Isis! but I am glad he died not!" he said to himself. "Aye, and there be many who are as glad as I am. Dear Ta-meri! She will be rejoiced, and Hotep. What a great happiness for the old murket--" he paused and clasped his hands together. "He is Mentu's only son! Now, in the name of the mystery-dealing Hathors, how came it that he died not with the first-born?" After a silence he muttered aloud: "G.o.ds!

the army would barter its mummy to have the secret of his safety, this day!"

At the first glimmerings of the dawn, the melody of many winded trumpets arose over the encampment of the Egyptians. Now the notes were near and clear, now afar and tremulous; again, deep and sonorous; now, full and rich, and yet again, fine and sweet. There is a pathos in the call of a war-trumpet that no frivolous rendering can subdue--it has sung so long at the death of men and nations.

Outlined in black silhouette against the whitening horizons, the sentries, tiny and slow-moving in the distance, tramped from post to post in a forward-leaning line. Soldiers began to shout to each other.

The clanking of many arms made another and a harsher music. The tumult of thousands of voices burdened the wind and above this presently arose the eager and expectant whinnyings of a mult.i.tude of war-horses.

While the army broke its fast and prepared to move the king stood in the open s.p.a.ce before his tent, with his eyes on the east. The Red Sea lay there beyond the uplifted line of desert sand, and it was the birthplace of many mists and unpropitious signs.

Would the sun look upon the king through a veil, or openly? Would he smile upon the purposes of the Pharaoh?

There were striations, watery and colorless, in the lower slopes of the morning sky, and these were taking on the light of dawn without its hues. Long wind-blown streaks crossed the zenith from east to west and the setting stars were blurred. The moon had worn a narrowing circlet in the night. Meneptah shook his head.

Suddenly some one in the ranks of the royal guard exclaimed to a mate:

"Look! Look to the southeast!"

Meneptah turned his eyes in that direction, as though he had been commanded. There, above the spot where he had guessed the Israelites to be, a straight and mighty column of vapor extended up, up into the smoky blue of the sky. The tortuous shapes of the striations across the zenith indicated that there was great wind at that height, but the column did not move or change its form. It was further distinguished from the clouds over the dawn, by a fine amber light upon it, deepening to gold in its shadows. So vivid the tint, that steady contemplation was necessary to a.s.sure the beholders that it was not fire, climbing in and out of the pillar's heart. Egypt's skies were rarely clouded and never by such a formation as this.

Meneptah turned his troubled eyes hurriedly toward the east. He must not miss the sunrise. At that moment, unheralded, the disk of the sun shot above the horizon as if blown from a crater of the under-world--blurred, milky-white, without warmth.

He turned away and faced Nechutes, bending before him; behind the cup-bearer, a stately stranger--Kenkenes.

"A message for thee, O Son of Ptah," Nechutes said.

At a sign from the king, the messenger came forward, knelt and delivered the scroll. The king looked at the writing on the wrapping.

"From whom dost thou bring this?" he asked.

"From Jambres, the mystic, O Son of Ptah."

"Ah!" It was the tone of one who has his surmises proved. "Now, what is contained herein?"

Kenkenes took it that the inquiry called for an answer.

"A warning, O King."

"How dost thou know?"

"The purport of the message was told me ere I departed."

"Wherefore? It is not common to lead the messenger into the secret he bears."

"I know, O Son of Ptah," Kenkenes replied quietly; "but the messenger who knew its contents would suffer not disaster or death to stay him in carrying it to thee."

As if to delay the reading of it, the king dismissed Nechutes and signed Kenkenes to arise. Then he turned the scroll over and over in his hands, inspecting it.

"Age does not cool the fever of retaliation," he said thoughtfully, "and this ancient Jambres hath a grudge against me. Come," he exclaimed as if an idea had struck him, "do thou open it."

Kenkenes took the scroll thrust toward him, and ripped off the linen wrapping. Unrolling the writing he extended it to the king.

"And there is naught in it of evil intent?" Meneptah asked, putting his hands behind him.

"Nay, my King; naught but great love and concern for thee."

"Read it," was the next command. "Mine eyes are dim of late," he added apologetically, for, through the young man's rea.s.suring tones, a faint realization of the trepidation he had exhibited began to dawn on Meneptah.

Kenkenes obeyed, reading without emphasis or inflection, for he knew no expression was needed to convey the force of the message to the already intimidated king.

When Kenkenes had finished, Meneptah was standing very close to him, as if a.s.sured of shelter in the heroic shadow of the tall young messenger.

The color had receded from the monarch's face, and his eyes had widened till the white was visible all around the iris.

"Call me the guard," he said hoa.r.s.ely; but when Kenkenes made as if to obey, the king stayed him in a panic.

"Nay, heed me not. Mine a.s.sa.s.sin may be among them." The sound of his own voice frightened him. "Soft," he whispered, "I may be heard."

Kenkenes maintained silence, for he was not yet ready.

Meanwhile, the king turned hither and thither, essayed to speak and cautiously refrained, grew paler of face and wider of eye, panted, trembled and broke out recklessly at last.

"G.o.ds! Trapped! Hemmed like a wild beast in a circle of spears! Nay, not so honestly beset. Ringed about by vipers ready to strike at every step! And this from mine own people, whom I have cherished and hovered over as they were my children--" His voice broke, but he continued his lament, growing unintelligible as he talked:

"Not enough that mine enemies menace me, but mine own must stab me in my straits! Not even is the ident.i.ty of mine a.s.sa.s.sin revealed, and there is none on whom I may call with safety and ask protection--"

"Nay, nay, Beloved of Ptah," Kenkenes interrupted. "There be true men among thy courtiers."

"Not one--not one whom I may trust," Meneptah declared hysterically.

"Here am I, then."

Meneptah, with the inordinate suspicion of the hard-pressed, backed hurriedly away from Kenkenes.

"Who art thou?" he demanded. "How may I know thou art not mine enemy?"

"Not so," Kenkenes protested. "Give me ear, I pray thee. Would I have brought thee thy warning, knowing it such, were I thine enemy? And further, did not Jambres, the mystic, who readeth men's souls, trust me?"

"Aye, so it seems," the king admitted, glad to be won by such physical magnificence. "But who art thou?"

"Kenkenes, the son of Mentu, thy murket."

"It can not be," the king declared with suspicion in his eye. "The murket had but one son and he must be dead with the first-born."

"Nay; I was in the land of Goshen, the night of death, and the G.o.d of Israel spared me."

Meneptah continued to gaze at him stubbornly. Then a conclusive proof suggested itself to Kenkenes, which, under the stress of an austere purpose and a soul-trying suspense, he had no heart to use. But the need pressed him; he choked back his unwillingness, and submitted.

Coming very close to Meneptah, he began to sing, with infinite softness, the song that the Pharaoh had heard at the Nile-side that sunrise, now as far away as his childhood seemed. How strange his own voice sounded to him--how out of place!